Details in Santa Cruz Mountain slaying of San Jose man emerge

SANTA CRUZ — One minute, a San Jose woman’s friend was laughing and leaning over to show her a music video on his phone. The next, that laughter was cut off and the life drained from his eyes.

Albaro Amaral appears in front of Judge Paul Burdick on Aug. 11 to face murder charges. (Shmuel Thaler – Santa Cruz Sentinel file) 

The bullet-ridden body of Kevin Medina-Lopez was found June 14 on Laurel Road in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Within days, Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office investigators had located two women who said they were with Medina-Lopez at the time of his death.

During a preliminary court hearing testimony Monday before visiting judge Vernon Nakahara, one of those witnesses spent much of her time on the stand with her eyes angrily locked on the face of Albaro Montalvo Amaral, who has been charged with murder in Medina-Lopez’s death.

Amaral, 30, of San Jose reportedly shot Medina-Lopez, 27, of San Jose, from behind while sitting in the backseat of his car before turning his gun on the man’s front-seat passenger, according to testimony. Amaral has pleaded not guilty to murder, attempted murder, car jacking, being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition and other special allegations.

The passenger, Monday’s witness, said things went black for her before she awoke, confused and slumped over her friend’s body, with pain throughout her body and something wet on her face.

Her first thought was that her friend Kevin was joking around, she said. Then she heard another friend, the second woman, screaming from outside the car.

“I felt that evilness from a person and I realized it wasn’t Kevin, the witness testified. “Then I heard more shots.”

The alleged shooter, a man the witness said she had met for the first time that afternoon and known to her then only as “Downer,” proceeded to get out of the car, come around to her door and unsuccessfully try to open it before pointing the gun at her face through the closed window, she said. His gun was empty and he began to reload, staring at her all the while, she said.

The witness said she took a moment of distraction to open her door, hands up, plead with the man not to shoot her, then throw herself down a steep nearby embankment.

From above, she heard three additional gunshots that sounded of a larger caliber gun, then tires rolling away on the pavement. When she climbed back up the hill, nursing a gunshot wound to the hand and abrasions to her face, the witness said she found Medina-Lopez’s dead body laid out on the ground, new bullet wounds to his chest and his internal organs leaking out. She then started running from the scene.

“He just left him there, threw him on the ground and shot him with his (Medina-Lopez’s) own shotgun and took off like a coward, the witness said.

Prior to the shooting, the foursome had been hanging out for much of the day around Santa Cruz, involved in multiple retail thefts, drinking vodka and smoking methamphetamine, according to the witness, who had negotiated a limited immunity deal from prosecution for the ancillary crimes she admitted to during her testimony. She, Medina-Lopez and Amaral were gang members associated with the Sureños, she said. The second witness, currently jailed in Santa Clara County on separate charges, plans to plead her 5th Amendment-right not to testify, her attorney said Monday.

On their way home to San Jose, Medina-Lopez exited Highway 17 on Laurel Road to drive past several mailboxes that the two women stole mail from in order to commit mail fraud, the witness said. In the confusion after the shooting, she said she left the crime scene in fear of police interrogation and jail confinement, as well as a threat to her own life from Amaral.

The preliminary hearing will continue at 9 a.m. Tuesday.

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Author: Jessica York

EastBayTimes